Michael Moore was booed at the Academy Awards last night. I cringed at the sound. The Dixie Chicks were boycotted last week. I felt ill. Martin and Charlie Sheen’s Visa commercial was pulled from the air. I was disgusted. I saw a protester’s sign on my local news yesterday reading “Deport Anti-War Protesters”. I was incensed.
Can someone explain to me exactly when protesting war became anti-American? I honestly can’t warrant it myself. I was too young to experience the effects of the Vietnam conflict, but I’ve heard and seen enough old news and film to have some notion of how it worked. Yes, there were people who dismissed the ‘hippie’ protesters and berated them for not supporting the brave men and woman fighting for their country. Yet somehow I believed that couldn’t have been a general consensus of opinions. I’m starting to doubt my belief, and it shakes me to the core. I turn to the words of someone I consider a great writer, with an interesting grasp of how democracy should work, Aaron Sorkin. In “The American President” Michael J. Fox’s character, Lewis Rothschild Chief Domestic Policy Advisor, is told the president doesn’t answer to him, his answer illustrates my point, “I’m a citizen, this is my president, and in this country it is not only permissible to question our leaders, it’s our responsibility.”
That is how it should be. Perhaps it’s slightly naive, but I’d like to think it’s a core idea we haven’t all lost site of. There are those who believe it’s disrespectful to our troops to question the reasons for our newest military action. That’s something else I just can’t fathom. How can wanting our troops home, safe with their families, be disrespectful? We question what they’re fighting for? So what? This isn’t World War II. Men and women aren’t going out in droves to join the military, gladly taking up arms to defend ourselves and our allies from an obviously violent force. Most of the people fighting now were already in service. They aren’t fighting because they think the war is a good idea, their fighting because they made a promise to serve their country and now their countries leader has deemed a war necessary. Do we really believe every one of them thinks the war on Iraq is the right move to make? That I’m afraid, is more naive than anything in my mind.
Odds are the number of military personnel on both sides of the war debate is as even as the civilian population. But they took a job, one they believed in, and they promised to fulfill the requirements of that job whether or not they agreed with the decisions of their leaders. I have the greatest respect for anyone willing to engage in that life, it’s not something I would’ve chosen for myself, but I’d never want to be a carpenter or truck driver either. What I feel about the war is also a moot point, since whether or not I agree with our administrations decision doesn’t affect my respect for those fighting the battles. The point is this; those men and women are fighting for the rights of Americans and others to say what they think. How then, can saying what we think, show a lack of respect?
Another quote from Sorkin’s “The American President”, “America isn’t easy. American is advanced citizenship, you gotta want it bad, ‘cause it’s gonna put up a fight. It’s gonna say, ‘You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating, at the top of his lungs, that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free, then the symbol of your country can’t just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest.’ Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.”
In my opinion, the greatest support you can give to the brave soldiers in Iraq is to utilize the very freedoms that they are fighting to protect. If you don’t stand up and have your say, if you don’t argue with the leaders when you disagree, if you don’t step up to the podium and give your piece of the discussion, then you waste the precious gift the soldiers, and those who came before them, give you.
Any suggestion that questioning this war, the President, or the military in general is anti-American is beyond ludicrous. I may not be a stellar American, I don’t always get myself out to vote in small elections, but I do what I can. When I have something to say I don’t hold back because my opinions are unpopular. I vote for major offices, and I don’t let that vote be swayed by cursory political ambitions or charm and articulation, but by the most basic principles of my chosen candidate. I support those who fight for my freedom, but most importantly I use that freedom and argue or defend the principles I find important. If we become so militant that we can’t accept the deeply felt opinions of others, we are no different than those we are fighting against. If we stop our citizens from expressing their concerns and stating their beliefs, then what precisely are those troops fighting for? The right to say what everyone else agrees with? Not in my country, and hopefully not in yours. That’s not where I want my son to grow up, that’s not where I want to live. I live in the land of the free, and I support my troops just as passionately as I support those who believe their presence is unwarranted.
So the next time you want to yell at an anti-war protester, not because you agree with the war, but because you think they have no right to disagree with it, please remember this. American=Argue. It sounds simplistic and a touch overzealous I admit, but am I wrong? This country was founded under the idea of questioning our leaders, of stating our convictions and not allowing ourselves to be held under the thumb of those leaders. If we don’t hold to that principle we lose all that makes this country great. As Goldie Hawn’s character says in Protocol, “If I don’t yell and scream when I think you’re doing it wrong then I just get what I deserve.” I won’t keep quiet, I will yell and scream, and if we all join in, we’ll get the kind of country, the kind of world we deserve. The kind of world that those brave men and women are fighting for.
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